FIU lost 11-10 to Florida Atlantic on Saturday afternoon in Boca Raton and finished the season 26-29. The Golden Panthers were 12-17 in the Sun Belt and finished in 10th place in the conference. Only the top eight teams qualify for the Sun Belt tournament.

Price, who coached FIU for 28 years, finished his FIU career with a record of 1,086-597. He had just three losing seasons, including this year.

But the Golden Panthers, who were regular participants in the NCAA postseason during the mid-to-late 1990's, missed the postseason for the fifth consecutive season with Saturday's loss.

Besides the shoddy record, other factors led to Price's dismissal.

In the latest NCAA Academic Progress Report, the FIU baseball team posted the worst APR score (850) among FIU's athletic teams and lost one scholarship.

Attendance at FIU home games has steadily decreased the past five years as the Golden Panthers have struggled to draw 500 fans per game.

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Looks like we finished Price

KC was quick to post this diary entry…..I guess a season ending sweep will do that for you. He was quite prophetic regarding Price's demise. It's a shame to see someone's career end in this way, but so goes the game of baseball. KC is adamant about the "new generation of administrators in the college ranks." I especially love his comment about all of us "crackpots":

"If he had been in a coach's shoes, maybe the boss would sit down with the coach and see what could be done to help. The easy answer is to listen to the 10 or 12 crackpots posting on internet message boards, or worse yet, a newspaper writer ranting on his blog. There is no editorial control over those guys, who love to track how many hits their blogs get. In the meantime a coach gets tried in the court of public opinion." :-)

I wonder when KC would agree that it's time for a change? I mean he would be the first to tell you (and the first to do it, I might add) that he's going with the freshman with the hot bat over the senior who is in a slump. So what's the diff? Baseball is a game of stats, numbers and "What have you done for me lately?" You're only as good as your next at bat. There is no loyalty at any level of this game.

Go Owls! (just another crackpot…excuse me for having an opinion)

WARNING!…. ADMINISTRATORS: PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO IMPACT ANY DECISIONS YOU MAY BE ABOUT TO MAKE!

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Looks like we finished Price

Price's track record speaks for itself and I do agree with KC about having an open dialogue with your coaches on every levels, from the vision, direction of the program, problems that might exist, etc…. I do have a feeling that FIU's AD wants his own people in place.

Chances can happen on many levels and every team goes through their woes, FIU lost a very good coach.

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Looks like we finished Price

I don't think there is any precedence to this. What other university has fired 5 (?) of its coaches from as many teams in less than a year? Are there more to come? That doesn't even include the assistant coaches.

This is uncharted territory as far as I know. I hope Garcia knows what he is doing.

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Looks like we finished Price

Looks like, with a few exceptions, FIU's coaching staff, accross the board, is going to be ex-UM coaches.

Some UM assistant baseball coaches are now being considered for the head coach job at FIU. UM must be fuming. The smartest thing they can do is hire Garcia back before he takes all their assistant coaches.

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Looks like we finished Price

Bytor said

I do have a feeling that FIU's AD wants his own people in place.

to further comment on this:

"I do have a feeling that FIU's AD wants his OLD people in place."

all that is occuring here is FIU is assuming a small chunk of Miami…i dont know if this will backfire or not…but you take a risk assuming just because coaches come from another successful school that they can, as former assistants, assume the helm and produce at the D1 level just by having sat under another coach…even two leveles down as in the case of football…

there are PLENTY of examples where this has failed throughout history…garcia is taking some huge risks IMO…

and i dont believe it shows much administrative skill from a hiring standpoin teither …its almost like "hey, let's get the old band together for a reunion tour"…EXCEPT in this case you dont even have the original musicians/vocalist in place that sold the records and made the band what it is - or even the back-up for that matter…you got the guys who handed the guitar to them in bewtween songs, checked sound levels, and threw water bottles out on the stage, etc…

i think our very own Craig Angelos shows more creative skill and hutspah…Garcia hasnt hired an up and coming from outside former ranks yet…and i doubt he will…

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Looks like we finished Price

A bit of perspective and reality on Garcia's coaching hires so far:

Only three new head coaches of competitive sports have been hired by Garciato fill in coaching vacancies . Of course the one everyone knows is Mario Cristobal, coming from UM for Football. The other two hires have been in men's and women's soccer. Garcia nabbed Thomas Chestnutt to coach women's soccer. Chestnutt was last an assistant coach for Fresno State…previously served as assistant coach at Florida. In men's soccer, Garcia hired from within, promoting long time assistant coach, and former FIU All American, Munga Eketebi.

There are two other head coaching vacancies (at least until now): softball and baseball. In softball, I have no idea and no there's no public information as to where he is going to go with the pick, but UM has no softball program, so that would make only 1 out of 4 hires as head coaches.

In baseball, there are two current UM coaches in the hunt, and 2 former assistant coaches (USF's Lazer Collazo, and Arizona St./LSU assistant coach Turtle Thomas) from UM as well, but not from there now….Also, the top assistant coach from Rice, as well as former FIU assistant/current South Carolina assistant coach Marc Calvi is mentioned. There is a head coach from LeMoyne College who is also, reportedly, interviewing for the job as well. However, the "biggest" name appears to be former Tennessee Volunteer Head Coach Rod Delmonico, who also just got fired by the Vols. He has expressed publicly his desire to come to FIU and share "his vision of FIU" with Garcia and President Maidique…

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Looks like we finished Price

You may be right...but the point is that while perception is that, only 1 assistant coach from UM has been/will be hired to be the Head Coach of 4 FIU head coaching vacancies so far. To say he ONLY hires UM assistants is not correct. If an assistant from UM is hired for baseball (and from what I hear, others have the "lead" right now over the UM assistants), it will mean 2 out of 5. If not, only 1 out of 5 will be Um ex-assistants.